Lending gender lens: Why, Where, Who, How, What

In my view the world is functioning only using half of its potential, just half of the population. Women are missing. It doesn't mean that women are not working or producing wealth, I mean that their contribution is invisible, underestimated and misunderstood. Creating an inclusive model of society and world is necessary and possible.

WHY- FOR EFFICIENCY AND EQUALITY.Women are untapped resources, giving full access to women to the economic and political sphere would boost the efficiency of the economy and would be more equitable in terms of political representation. Women show different attitudes than men and different ways to solve problems. A man doesn't know exactly what women need or want.

WHERE- ALL OVER THE WORLD. The subordination of women is a common feature of every community in the world, with a different degree of exploitation and inequality. Gender gap is not an universal and inevitabile feature of human societies, but patriarchal structures are widespread and they layered over the time. Often there is no need of using violence to keep women in a subject position, we are educated to it, it looks appropriate and natural.

WHO-WOMEN AS CHANGE MAKERS. I personally feel a strong connection with women, for me gender is a badge of identity stronger than religion or culture. We, as women, share concerns and subject positons. We bear the responsabilty of the housework the risk of sexual harrassment and violence. Often our body is used to sell commodities and goods, often we are merely goods. Sharing common experiences and prospectives make easier building bridges and mutual understanding.

HOW-COLLECTIVE ACTION AND WEB 2.0. I think that women's collective action is a strategical tool for women's empowerment and web 2.0 can help us to create a huge transnational movement. A big critical mass that works at the lowest level, in each community, that works with a common challange make women visible, make women heard, make the society understand that women matter.

WHAT-TO SPREAD KNOWLEDGE, RISE AWARENESS AND SHAPE CRITICAL MINDS.Cultural changes go slow but women should cooperate to create a movement to raise awareness among women of their rights and their possibilities. Empowering women from within is the first step. Secondly I think that this big social movement should involve men and youngsters. Gender relations are built around female-male relationship and men should be aware as well of the advantages of women's empowerment. Finally the youngsters should be educated out of imposed gender role models, they are our future. I wish that everyone read daily women's stories of oppression and inequalities, violence, from all over the world. I wish that internet made gender inequalities unaccettable to the public opinion and the youngster. A new source of informations can shape critical minds.

I would like to be part of this movement, I would like to write about women's rights and gender issues, giving all my knowledge and experience not to teach something but to describe what's happening and why....waiting that as much audience as possible will see the world in the way I do, with my “GENDER LENS”: merely too unfair.